• David Coleman at The Crawfish Boxes has a thorough post, some of whose topics are that the Astros have gotten a steal out of his first almost six years and that this might make him more lucrative to trade eventually.

The Astros certainly appear to have the makings of a formidable rotation going forward, especially if top prospect Jordan Lyles can grab the final spot in the rotation by the end of 2011 or soon after.

The money is high, but that’s the cost of not exposing a player to the free-agent market, where his price can be artificially elevated if other top free agents sign early or it’s a weak class like it was this year.

The age concern is real, but as a player who broke in at 26 rather than 21, it makes me a little bit less concerned.

Sorry for wandering, but the final thing that bears noting is that the Astros are staying true to not being in a full rebuild. They’re not going to get the payroll down to $50 million and then start it rising again as a new crop hits arbitration. Nobody around Union Station seems to want to endure a 100-loss season, which can be both a blessing and a scourge.

The Astros will be competitive this year and have set themselves up to be competitive in 2012 and 2013 as well. Whether competitive can turn into good or great depends not on Wandy or Brett Myers but on the young guys, especially this rising sophomore class. And the theme for this spring and this year will be finding out just who can be on the next great Astros team and whether it will come during this contract.